this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2024
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Exposed copper is a big no-no in the regulations where I live, because it's a corrosion risk and a shock risk when exposed. Everything needs to be either covered in plastic or be coated in something corrosion resistant (for grounding wires for example, even tho those are usually covered in plastic as well depending on the situation).
Loose wires under screws can be applied in very specific situations, but they usually need to be clamped down. And the screw needs to be fully recessed so it's not something that can get into contact with anything else. Daisy chaining is also usually not done, but depending on the situation it can be allowed even though it isn't recommended.
Keep in mind European rules and regulations are way different and even different per country. And what the rules say and the shit people actually pull isn't the same either. The most interesting difference to me is the amount of metal used in American systems, where Europeans systems are usually as much plastic as possible. Even if metal is required for some reason, it's usually fully covered with plastic. At the same time in Europe having ground fault interrupters (or comparable, it isn't exactly the same) are not only standard but usually required.
The exposed copper is the ground wire. How's it done where you are?
Grounding wire is just like regular wire over here. The colors we use are: Blue for the neutral, brown for the hot and green/yellow for earth/ground.
There are more colors for other situations, but these are the most used. Black is also used a lot and usually means a switched hot, so brown to a switch and black to for example a light fixture. These are often done in a thinner gauge because the switch can't switch a big load anyways and usually lights don't use that much power.
Normal gauges are 2.5mm2 (14 AWG) for regular 16A circuits and 1.5mm2 (16 AWG) for switched circuits. Keep in mind this is at 250V, so 16A gives you a hecking lot of power (4000 watt continuous load). The circuits are designed such you can even go a bit above this for a short time. The wires are designed to handle 25A without any issue, but are limited by the protection equipment ("fuse"). All wires need to be single stranded, multi stranded can only be used in specific situations, never in permanent installations (except for shielding wires which are usually by definition stranded and will normally never carry any current).
Well the exposed wire is a ground.
Ok yes, it would be better to screw in those screws.
I hate GFIs. They take up so much room in the box. Here (IL USA) code says to use em in bathrooms and kitchens. Like within 10' of water or something.
In Europe all the GFIs and such are in the central switch box, not at the outlet. Because everything needs to be protected it's useful to have it all in a central place. The way it is incorporated can be complex, but there can be just one for the entire house. But usually there are much more, depending on how the place is wired up and how recent it is.
Can be here too, but usually isn’t. It’s just an annoying shortcut.
Originally there weren’t such breakers and you only needed a limited number of gfci’s so it was cheaper to use protected outlets. Now it’s just annoying, although there’s the convenience argument of having the reset right there at point of use
You can wire a GFCI outlet to have it protect everything after it. Pretty common in kitchen and bathroom situations where GFCI are required.
In the US you'll see circuits where the GFI is elsewhere (so one circuit is protected).
We're starting to see the GFI in the panel.
We do it both ways. New construction vs old construction basically. I never put a GFI in a breaker box tho. I assume it's just a fatter breaker.
Yeah it's usually a 2 unit wide thing, that connects to a max of 4 breakers that protect the (usually) 16A circuits. However recently it has become the norm to just integrate the breaker and the ground fault protection and those can be as thin as 1 unit. So the size of a normal breaker.